


Stand

by Ember_Keelty



Series: Doll Verse [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 19:09:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ember_Keelty/pseuds/Ember_Keelty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It was a set-back. She can't think about failures. The last time she thought about failures, she lay down on the floor and didn't move until Jack forced her to."</p><p>(From Doll Parts by conceptofzero)</p><p>This is that time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stand

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Doll Parts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/283646) by [conceptofzero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero). 



> This takes place in the same universe as conceptofzero's [Doll Parts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/283646). See her notes on that story for how this whole little series we've both been working in fits together.

            She doesn't understand what just happened.

            There was a planet, not much different from the millions of others.  A bit more barren than most, perhaps.  Drier.  Less populated.  It was just as alien, though, just as unfamiliar.

            The people on it weren't.

            It didn't make any sense.  This wasn't the universe Skaia's portals led to – Jack would have known if it were, and he seemed just as surprised as she was.  Besides, she recognized a few faces – faces she had almost forgotten, but seeing them again brought back a rush of memories – of people she was almost certain could not have escaped.  She had watched Jack slaughter them once before, and for the first time that she can remember, he broke her down to begging him not to do it again.  It didn't work.

            When his latest collection of alien slaves rounded up the handful that survived the Red Miles and brought them in chains before him, he turned to her and held out a sword.  "You can't make me," she told him.

            "No, I guess I can't," he said.  "If you really want to, you can watch me torture them to death instead."

            Of course, she took the sword.  Of course, when she thought he wouldn't be expecting it, she turned it on him.  That didn't work either.  She refused to watch what he did to them after that, but she couldn't block out the screaming.  It lasted for what must have been nearly an hour, until she begged him to give her another chance.  That _did_ work, for a given value of "working".  It was a shock to the system after so long to look into the eyes of ordinary people – not aliens, not carapacian-shaped monsters like the Dignitary, or true monsters like Jack, or hollowed-out shells like the woman in the mirror.  Seeing those people's eyes change when she stabbed through their hearts was almost less shocking; other carapacians were a strange and unexpected sight, but she was all too used to corpses.

            Once she had finished, Jack took the sword away and pushed her down on the ground amid the bodies.  He whispered in her ear while he fucked her, telling her how beautiful she looked when she was killing.

            There is blood on her clothes as she staggers through the halls of the palace.  She doesn't make it even halfway to the washroom before collapsing and throwing up.  She can't do this anymore.  She has failed too many times, and it has cost far too much.

            She forces herself to her feet, manages to walk just far enough to escape the smell of sickness before her legs give out again.  For a long time she's kept herself from crying by telling herself that she used up all her tears ages back, but maybe that's not so true after all.  She sobs and screams and slams her sword-hand against the floor again and again until the shell cracks and bleeds, not caring at all if he hears her.  He already knows that this time, he's broken her.

            When she has completely exhausted herself, she lies still until she falls asleep.  She wakes some indeterminable amount of time later to her stomach aching with hunger and her head with dehydration, but she ignores both of them and just stares at the ceiling until she drifts off again.  Jack wakes her up this time, spitting orders at her and beating her when she ignores them.  She refuses to respond until he picks her up with a tentacle around her throat and chokes her.  Her body struggles reflexively, but her heart isn't in it, and she stops the moment he drops her.  So, he does it again.  That's fine.  If he wants to, he can keep this up until he makes a mistake and kills her.

            He doesn't, though.  After the third time, he stops and teleports off in a huff.  She almost dares to hope that maybe he's finally gotten bored of her.

            The next time she falls asleep, she wakes up with his mouth pressed hot against the side of her neck and his tentacles rolling up her skirt.

            "Glad you could join me," he says when he feels her tense up.  She does her best to force her body to relax.  He can do what he wants, but she won't make it interesting for him, not this time.  He slides his hand up her thigh slowly, giving her every chance to struggle, to try futilely to kick him away, but she doesn't rise to the bait.  She barely even shudders when two of his fingers slip inside of her and his thumb begins to work her clit.

            He curls and stretches his fingers, thrusting them up against her most sensitive spots.  She tries desperately to think of something, anything else other than the way they feel, and it suddenly occurs to her how strange it is that he didn't strip her down first.  He skipped that the last time too, which makes it even stranger.  Her stomach twists just a little when she realizes that he must like how she looks covered in blood even more than the sight of her naked and helpless.

            It doesn't take him long to get her wet.  She does her best to keep her breathing steady, bracing herself for what always comes next.  This time, though, he doesn't force his prick into her.  He just keeps fucking her with his fingers until what little control she managed over her breath breaks, leaving her gasping with the rising heat in her blood.

            "You like that, doll?" he asks her.  "You must.  If you didn't want this, you could just get up and leave.  I'm not holding you down this time."  So that's what this is about.  He isn't here for his own satisfaction; he just wants to torture her some more.

            For a while he doesn't say anything more, and there's nothing to hear but her own ragged breathing and a few involuntary groans and whimpers he manages to force out of her.  Then:  "I've been thinking about what we found back there the other day."

            There's nothing to think about.  Blood and broken bodies, that's all he ever makes of what he finds.  She doesn't want to listen to this.  All she wants to do is rest, but what he's doing to her has her pulse racing and her whole body wide awake to every sensation.

            "Didn't there used to be some quacks who wrote about things like that?" he continues on.  "Other universes like ours, but with different numbers of prototyping towers and Battlefields in different shapes?  Maybe they were on to something after all.  Maybe if we keep burning through universes, we'll find more and more planets like that one."

            She can always kill herself, she thinks.  She doesn't want to get up from this spot, but it seems like he's going to make her, one way or another.  He'll try to stop her if he catches her, but he can't watch her forever, and she suspects the Dignitary would be more than willing to look the other way.

            A tentacle loops around her neck.  Without even thinking, she tries to claw it off before he can squeeze down, but it quickly coils around her shoulders and pins her arms to her sides.  He doesn't strangle her, though, just pulls her head and chest a little way off the ground so that he's breathing right in her face when he leans down.  "What I'm getting at," he says with a nasty grin, "is don't make the mistake of thinking you're _completely_ irreplaceable.  And try to be a little less fucking boring."

            Then his mouth crashes down on hers, and his fingers thrust in deep and his thumb grinds down hard and she comes.  It feels like she's being shaken to pieces.  She hasn't had anything to eat or drink in days, and her body is too weak for what's happening to it.  The pleasure dampens the pain, but even that can't blot it out entirely, and the sound that escapes her mouth into his is one full of hurt.  He's never cared to tell the difference, though, and he responds by deepening the kiss, as though she were egging him on, as though she ever wanted _any_ of this.

            She hates him so much.

            She bites him.  He pulls back from her with a short, sharp laugh and drops her.  Her head and shoulder blades crack painfully against the hard floor, but it's not a punishment.  Later, she suspects, he'll find some awful way of reminding her that he can do whatever he pleases to her and she has no right to resist, but right now, he _wants_ her to fight back.  He wants her to entertain him.

            Jack finally dislodges his fingers, but his hand stays cupped around her.  "Want to go again?" he asks.  "I can keep this up as long as you need me to."

            She squirms away from him and pulls herself to her knees, just a little too quickly.  Blood rushes from her head and her vision clouds over.  She can hear him laugh at her as she throws her arms out blindly to brace herself against the wall.  "Need a hand?" he asks and there's a tentacle brushing her waist, but she shoves it away and stands without his help, leaning against the wall until her head stops spinning and her eyes clear.

            She can always kill herself.  But.

            He would have murdered those people with or without her there to watch.  She knows that.  She also knows that however little she may have intended it, she did help make him what he is.  He is _her_ problem, and it is _her_ job to destroy him.  And if he's right about there being other planets with carapacians, if he's telling the truth about being willing to replace her...  She can't finish that thought.  She can't stand even to imagine him putting someone else through everything he's done to her.

            And when she forgets all of that?  She just has to think about his awful smile, his cold laughter, his touch against her shell, and she knows all the way in the pit of her gut that she _cannot_ let that bastard outlive her.

            "I need something to eat," is all she says to him.  He responds with something that's probably supposed to sound sympathetic, but she doesn't let herself listen, doesn't let herself think about the tentacle he slips around her to support her as she walks.  All that matters is that he's still stupid enough to want to keep her alive — and one day, she tells herself, that mistake _will_ destroy him.


End file.
